


Dinner with Friends

by farfarawaygirl



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, Slow Burn, dangerous jobs, the feeling of more, wedding season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25191091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfarawaygirl/pseuds/farfarawaygirl
Summary: Matt helps her out of her coat, and hangs it while she goes to the kettle. He watches the way she moves, feels such a tenderness in his heart for her. She’s moving in his kitchen in a way that makes him feel like she belongs there.Not in his kitchen. But in his life.
Relationships: Sylvie Brett & Matthew Casey, Sylvie Brett/Matthew Casey
Comments: 23
Kudos: 173





	Dinner with Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I cleaned this one up, but I definitely wrote it before the wedding episode. 🤷🏻♀️

Sylvie is uncharacteristically quiet thought dinner. Matt tries to play it off as tiredness after a long shift, but that just doesn’t ring true to him. When they’re clearing the table, before dessert he snags her wrist by the dishwasher and asks. 

“You okay?”

She looks up from scraping a plate into the compost, flicks her eyes to the room beyond them, and makes this little ‘uh hun’, noise. She’s passing plates to him, using a wooden spatula to remove any food. 

“Should I make coffee?”, Kidd pops up, reaching between them to turn on the sink. No one really answers, but she starts it anyways. This dinner was her idea, she wanted to spend some time with Gabby before the wedding, and decide to invite Gabby and Brett over. 

“You know,” she had said to Kelly and Matt, in the common room, “like a fucking adult.”

At the time they had laughed, it had seemed like a good idea. But, now... now Matt can’t help feeling like somehow he has done something wrong. He catalogues the night in his head, it started easy, Severide had marinated the steak, Stella had mashed the potatoes, he had dressed the salad. 

At Stella’s behest, he and Severide had moved the workout bench, and put up a table, which she had set. Matt has never seen these dishes before. He’d dutifully moved chairs and fetched glassware, filled pitchers and swept the kitchen. 

Gabby had been tasked with bringing wine, and Sylvie was on dessert detail. She’d worried over it for the last three days; Severide hates cinnamon, Stella doesn’t like hot fudge, what if Gabby doesn’t like dessert anymore? Finally Matt had told her to make his favourite, lemon blueberry bundt cake, with ice cream.

Sylvie had predictably pulled out all the stops. Fresh lemons and blueberries, sticky sugar glaze, homemade ice cream. She’s even made a simple syrup with sugar and aged whiskey to ‘really test’ herself. Well, now the ice cream is softening on the counter, and Matt thinks she looks unhappy. 

He adds the last plate, and flicks the dishwasher on. Stella has ordered Sylvie to grab the coffee mugs, and has carried the French press over. Matt’s alone in the kitchen, drying his hands, trying to figure out what’s eating Sylvie. 

Has Julie done something? Scott, maybe? Have her and Foster had an other fight? He thinks he’d know if it was any of those things. Maybe she’s having a rough time with her apartment being wedding central? 

He comes back to the table, and takes his seat. Gabby’s in one side of him, and Sylvie is seated at the odd man out head of the table, with Severide and Kidd on her other side. Sylvie is slicing her cake, generous slices she drizzles with the simple syrup before adding a scoop of ice cream. She serves herself last, and Matt notes that she takes a slice less than half the size of his. 

“Sylvie!” Kidd is practically moaning, “this is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth!”

The left side of her mouth picks up in a half smile. 

“Makes me miss the roomie cook off days,”, adds Gabby, taking a bite. 

Matt takes a bite, and has to agree with Kidd. This is damn good. He turns to tell Sylvie, but instead watches her push her bite across her dessert plate. Something is wrong. When Sylvie looks up, she meets his eyes for a half second, immediate looking away. Matt’s wracking his brain for what could have her this discombobulated.

Severide asks her a question about the wedding party, and she turns away from Matt, answering him. Whatever she says, Matt misses it, but it makes Severide groan and lean toward her in his chair. 

“Please, Sylvie.” Kelly begs, “I don’t want to dance with her! Chloe’s sister always steps on my toes.”

“The best man has to dance with the maid of honour!” 

Sylvie seems more animated with that, than she has all night. 

“I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that Otis won’t be up there with him.” At her words they all turn to Gabby. Sometimes the glare of her absence is so present in how she speaks. 

Yes, she loved and knew Otis, but his death impacted everyone in this room so completely that it feels wrong of her to mention in. 

“Lilly’s coming.” Sylvie offers, finally taking a bite of her own dessert. “She asked Cruz for a moment before the ceremony, said Otis has once told her what he would say to Cruz if he...” she trails off her, her hand going to her throat. 

“As if I didn’t have enough to contend with.”

Severide’s joke cuts the ice, and Matt watches as Kelly bumps his knuckles into Sylvie’s wrist. 

Sylvie pours out the cups of coffee, showing her care for each of them when she gets their individual cups juts right. Cream and sugar where needed. Matt notes that she doesn’t touch her own coffee. She glances at her wristwatch, and clears her throat. 

“I think I’ll be off,” she gathering plates as she stands, the desserts all cleared. 

“We could split an Uber,” Gabby offers, not getting up. 

Sylvie answers from the kitchen, “oh, don’t leave on my account. I’ve got an early morning.”

“Wedding stuff?” Severide asks, concerned that he forgot something. 

“No.” Sylvie dismisses, putting the ice cream back in the freezer. “You’re clear until Saturday.”

“I’ll walk you down,” Matt stands, moves toward the door. 

“Don’t be silly, you have company.” 

Sylvie is buttoning her jacket up, pulling her purple-pink mittens on, ready to leave. Matt suddenly wishes he had a tiny entrance room, because they’re so exposed there, with the table feet away from the door. Right before she steps out, she looks back at the four of them, seems to find whatever she was looking for because she nods, once, sharply and then she’s gone. 

Matt turns back to the table, shrugs at his friends and takes his seat again, he joins the conversation but can’t help thinking about the way that Sylvie was so quiet. There’s a moment about half an hour later, where it’s just he and Kelly, and he asks.

“Did a Sylvie seem off to you?”

Kelly shots him a looks, one that Matt can’t quite read, but then Gabby’s back from the washroom and Stella has the cards she was looking for. 

Gabby seems to linger a bit, looking over at Matt when Kidd declares it was a great night. She eventually calls an Uber, and says she’ll see them all at the wedding. That she might even drop by next shift. Matt gives her a parting hug, grateful that he doesn’t feel overwhelmed by her presence. 

After he locks the door, he goes to stand in the kitchen. Kelly’s unloading the dishwasher, Stella’s gone to their room.

“What was that look?”

“What look?”

Kelly’s distracted, not really paying attention 

“About Sylvie.”

He looks up, gives Matt a smirk. 

“You’re an idiot.”

Matt flicks the dish towel at him, but Kelly doesn’t even flinch. 

“Seriously. You are.”

“Okay, why?”

“What kind of moron invites his ex wife to dinner, with the woman he has been badly flirting with for months?”

Casey feels a moment of pure shock. 

“But Stella invited them both.”

“Yeah. And you let her!”

Kelly’s stacking glasses in the cupboard, shaking his head at Matt. 

“You didn’t deny the badly flirting thing.”

“I haven’t.” Matt offers, weakly, “I don’t. We’re just friends.”

Kelly leans back against the counter, crosses his arm. 

“You give all your friends long, searching looks before you run into a fire?”

There is a sudden flash of heat along Matt’s cheeks. He’d kind of thought he had been smart enough to be subtle than that. 

“Does Sylvie know?”

Severide snorts. 

“God no, she’s more in denial than you.”

Matt feels suddenly very foolish, standing in his kitchen. He thought he knew what he was doing, he thought he had things under control. 

“Night,” Severide says, leaving Matt in the kitchen with an empty dishwasher, half eaten cake and stomach full of dread. 

————

Matt had a busy day scheduled, but if anything that made him more determined to connect with Sylvie. He repeatedly texted her. 

Matt Casey: do you have time for coffee? 

Sylvie Brett: I’m already caffeinated!

Didn’t she get that he was trying to figure out what was bothering her?

Matt Casey: I’m heading over to work on Mr. Larson’s, wanna stop by?

Sylvie Brett: Sorry, I cant! Give him and Dusty a hug from me. 

Matt Casey: I’m in Wicker Park, wanna join me for dinner at Etta’s for pizza?

Sylvie Brett: I’m in Rockford. 

Honestly, he felt like an idiot. 

Matt grabbed Etta’s to go, ate it alone in the kitchen, because Stella was working at Molly’s so Severide was drinking at Molly’s. He cracked open a beer, and watched the fading light over the river. His phone chirped a message. 

Gabby Dawson: why aren’t you at Molly’s?

Matt tossed it down the counter. 

What did Gabby think was going to happen? They’d hook up again, and then she’s leave again? Did she really think that he’d want that? To keep things so open ended? He was Matt Casey, that wasn’t his style. He wanted certain things. 

Matt wanted a home. And he wanted that home to be in Chicago. He wanted a partner who asked him what he thought, before just doing things. 

He wanted to come home to someone that made him smile, and encouraged him. 

He wanted Sylvie. 

This was kind of first time he’d allowed himself to think that. 

Grabbing his phone, Matt pushes icons until Sylvie’s face appeared. The phone rang. Once. Twice. 

“Matt?” She sounded worried. 

“Are you home?”

“I’m on the road. About twenty minutes left, is everything okay?”

It wasn’t. He really wanted to see her. 

“Do you want to come over for a drink?” Sylvie was silent. “There’s still cake!”

“Aren’t you busy?”

“No.” Matt said, honestly. “I feel like I haven’t see you in days. 

“I was literally there last night.”

“Please.” 

Again, Sylvie was quiet. She sighed. 

“Fine. Put on the kettle, because I’m freezing.”

“Okay.”

“There’s better be easy parking,” she warned, her voice filling him up with warmth. 

They rung off, and Matt dutifully filled the kettle, he pulled the ice cream out, got mugs and plates. She knocked at the door. 

Can you feel nervous about seeing someone you invited over? Someone you see all the time? Matt knew now that he could, that he was nervous to see her. 

“You’re here,” he said, pulling open the door. And there was someone there, just not who he was expecting. 

“Gabby.”

“Hey, Matt.” She unwound her blue scarf. “Thought I’d come to you.” 

“I’m expecting someone else.”

Matt looked at his watch. 

“I didn’t realize you were seeing someone.”

Matt didn’t know how to respond. He isn’t seeing someone. He wants to see someone. 

“Can we not do this?” 

Gabby wrapped her scarf back up, her mouth set in a firm line. 

“See you at the wedding.” She turned and left, Matt watched her walk down the hallway, hoping she didn’t run into Sylvie. He waited there, door open, watching. Luck was on his side tonight, because Sylvie arrived ten minutes later, long enough to not bump into Gabby. 

Her eyes looked tired. 

“Hey,” Matt greeted her, pulling her into a hug. She was still in her jacket, scarf and mittens, so it was a mostly down and knitwear hug, but it settled some of his nerves. He couldn’t put a time or date to it, but somehow Sylvie had become the person he needed most to feel secure. 

She burrowed right in. 

“I think my heater is on the fritz.”

“I would have driven you.” Matt states. 

“You had work today”, Sylvie reminds him. 

Matt helps her out of her coat, and hangs it while she goes to the kettle. He watches the way she moves, feels such a tenderness in his heart for her. She’s moving in his kitchen in a way that makes him feel like she belongs there. 

Not in his kitchen. But in his life. 

“What did you do today?”

Sylvie shrugs. “I had an early hair appointment,” he can tell she had a trim, maybe some colour, “picked up a million wedding favours and took Julie to a Doctors appointment.” 

She’s busy with her hands, and kind of avoiding his eyes. 

“How is that working out?”

Sylvie’s plating their dessert, but pauses for a moment, one finger resting on the cutting knife. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth. 

“Take this to he couch, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Matt obliges, carrying their plates, while Sylvie deftly wraps the leftover cake, and stores the ice cream in the fridge. When she comes to join him, Matt feels a frisson of happiness as she sits right beside him. Tucks her knees up, so they kind of rest on his thigh and her shoulder is pressed into his. 

“I’m not sure?” She starts, eyes downcast, “everything was so good at first. But, now...”

She tells him about Scott, the controlling way he treats Julie, the condescending way he’s treating her. Sylvie outlines the heartbreak that going through this pregnancy with Julie has opened her up to. Her innate goodness makes it near impossible for her to not say yes when Julie asks for anything. 

As she talks, Matt removes her empty plate, piling it on his in the side table. Sylvie’s still cold, so he wiggles a little and pulls out a blanket Stella tucked underneath the table. Tucking the blanket around her, Matt pulls Sylvie in a little bit, arm around her shoulder. 

“Matt,” Sylvie’s voice is low, “I’m just so tired of people not wanting me back.”

“Anyone who doesn’t want you, is an idiot.”

Sylvie’s head drops a little, her eyelids closing. 

“Wake me up in ten minutes.”

Matt has no intention of waking her up. 

————-

Stella and Severide come home a little past 2 am, Matt hears them in the hall, but doesn’t move. Sylvie is asleep on his shoulder, little puffs of air going up to his neck. Kelly sees them first, and he just gives Matt this look. When Stella sees them, her whole face lights up, she shakes her head and heads to her room. 

“So, is this like a thing?”

Matt shakes his head. “I’m working on it.”

—————

“Matt,” someone shakes his shoulder, “Matt, wake up.”

He cracks an eye to see Sylvie kneeling on the couch beside him, a line on her face from the seam of his shirt. He reaches out and traces it. 

“You did not wake me up after ten minutes.” She doesn’t sound annoyed, almost like she’s laughing at him. “Your neck is going to hurt so bad.”

Her hands come up on either side of his ears, and she digs her fingers in for a second. 

“That’s nice.” Casey hums, leaning back. 

“I have to go.”

Casey holds onto her wrists, stopping her from moving. 

“Stay.”

“I can’t.” 

“You can.”

Sylvie leans back, but her fingers are still on his neck. 

“I need to go and get my things, my alarm would be going off in twenty minutes anyway.”

“Really?” Matt looks around, sees the time and the colour of the sky. “I’ll drive you.”

“I drove here.”

Matt groans. 

“Fine. Then I’ll see you at work?”

Sylvie is standing, stretching her arms, turning her neck. 

“Where’s my coat?”

Matt helps her out it on, after he grabs it from the chair he laid it on, smiling into her face. 

“Thanks for listening.”

Matt wants to say all the things he’s feeling, wants to tell her that he sent Gabby away, but he wants the timing to be perfect. Sylvie shakes her head at him, making a caught out face when they hear an alarm go off in Severide’s room. She tips up on her toes, and kisses his cheek, eyes closed when she pulls away. 

“I’ll see you soon, Sylvie.”

—————

“My neck is killing me,” Matt groans, flopping down on the cool metal of the back of the ambulance. 

Sylvie comes over, taking a seat a little above him, forcing him to look up and over. He winces, brings his hand to his neck. 

“You are the one who insisted on sleeping on the couch. I asked you to wake me up.”

Slowly, like she’s not sure if she should, Sylvie slides over. Her hip hits his shoulder, then she is reaching, both of her hands moving up and down on his shoulders and neck. She finds a knot, and digs in, pressing sharply with her thumb. 

“I’m really glad you came over, even if I now can’t move my neck.”

Sylvie laughs. “Me too.”

Absently, he plays with the laces on her boot. 

“I meant what I said, anyone who knows you and doesn’t want you? Idiot.”

Sylvie hands slide down, around his neck, she gives him an awkward hug, chin briefly pressing into his ear. It’s the best Matt’s felt all day. He moves a hand, catching the side of her shoulder, patting her back. 

The moment is broken by the sounds of the bells.

“Squad 3, Ambulance 61, child in distress.”

Casey moves away from the Ambo, watching as Brett closes the back doors, rounding to the passenger side as Foster takes the drivers seat. Just before they pull out, she looks up and over at Casey. It’s only a second, but it fills Casey with something bright and delicate. 

————

Casey and Boden are sitting in his office reviewing duty rosters twenty minutes after Squad and Ambo were called out when the distress calls in. It’s Cruz’s voice over the radio, there is a level of panic in it that makes Casey’s skin crawl. 

“Squad 3 to main, requesting additional support. Partial structure collapse. Squad Lieutenant and PIC trapped.”

There is one split second where Boden and Casey hold each other’s gaze, then the bells go off and they are moving. 

—

When the wall had started to fall, Brett had been kneeling beside Severide. She had been zipping her jump bag, watching Foster and Capp as they moved the boy in the stokes basket towards the door. There had only been the one ominous creak, and then Severide was shouting at everyone to get out, even as he threw himself over her. It felt like hours until the sound stopped, and the floor steadies beneath them, but Sylvie had counted out the heartbeats from Severide’s chest, so she knew it wasn’t more than two minutes. They were coughing from the dust, both clutching each other, ears ringing. 

“Are you hurt?”

Sylvie mostly reads his lips, still overwhelmed by the noise. She shakes her head, nodding towards Severide, he’s shaking his head but Sylvie puts a hand to his cheek, wiping away blood. She thinks he says he’s fine, but her ears are ringing, and her heart is pounding so hard she can almost taste it. 

They are crouched down, Sylvie’s back pressed against a smooth metal pillar, Severide assesses the wall tipped over them. 

Her hearing seems to switch back on. 

“At least this wall looks stable.” As soon as Kelly speaks a cloud of dust and micro particles flies from the wall as it shudders. “Or not.”

“Do we have radio signal?” At her question Severide reaches for his shoulder. His radio is strapped on, but doesn’t crackle to life when he pushes the button. 

He grunts, “yours?”

“I had it on the floor beside me.”

Distantly there the sound of sirens. 

—

It takes Squad, Truck and Engine exactly 23 minutes to pull them out. Matt knows this because he logs the time that Cruz called it in. The drive over, in total 2 minutes 43 seconds, is excruciating. The 1 minute 13 seconds it took for Mouch to get to the truck before they rolled out was torture. 

Matt’s not to crazy about the time spent shifting debris and stabilizing the structure either. It’s not until Tony hauls Brett up, that his heart evens out a little. The panic in his chest doesn’t fade until she is slipping her arms around his neck, holding onto him as he carries her over a mound of bricks and out of the mess. Behind them he hears Cruz and Herrmann exclaim over Severide, so Casey just keeps on moving with Brett. 

She is dust clogged. Her skin greyed by the rubble, but she is miraculously there. Miraculously whole. Soft and tender under his hands. He doesn’t let go, wraps her up, draws her in. 

“I’m okay.” Her voice is soft, right in his ear. 

“I’m not.”

Sylvie doesn’t resist him, and she doesn’t pull away, just leans her head on his shoulder and lets out air. Foster knocks into his arm as she throws herself on Brett, all worry and words. Then it’s Herrmann and Boden, but somehow Casey keeps her in his arms. 

“I’m okay.” Sylvie nods affirmatively at Boden, then she looks back at the pile they pulled her from. “How’s Kelly?”

At that moment Cruz and Tony crest a pile of bricks, Severide laughing behind him. Kidd is there in seconds, face white, arms eager to hold him. They share a kiss, and Matt is suddenly, urgently aware of the fact that he can’t kiss Sylvie. That he has things he needs to say to her. But, and he hates this, they have a job to do. Roles to play. So he nods once at her, and turns back the building even as she gets back into the Ambo with Foster. 

The work is a welcome distraction. Or at least a means to work out his frustration. Matt leads the team in clearing the area, and declaring it safe, and all the while he thinks of Sylvie. The physical work engages his body, but mostly leaves his mind clear to catalogue her. He has know how he feels for a while now, and he can’t wait any longer. He has to tell her.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you liked!


End file.
